YES, WE CAN!

Ladies and gentleman around the world, cats and dogs, dancers and wallflowers, the people of the United States of America would like to offer their love and a big “Whoops! My bad!” for making you worry.

That’s right. I’m speaking for the whole dang country.

Have you ever spent eight years beating your head against a brick wall? You have? Then you understand the utter liberation of when you stop beating your head on said wall.

I was up until 3:00 a.m. last night. Some of that was at Mayslack’s, celebrating Erin’s birthday. Some of that was at Kurt and Kathy’s house, coloring maps of the U.S. either blue (Democrat) or red (Republican) in the hopes of winning the Barack Obama bobble-head doll. Some of that was drinking beer. Some of that was hugging and crying with Jen. Some of that was the sustained partying by the downstairs renters and the 400 people they invited over to watch the election, drink keg-loads of beer, and, apparently, march from one end of the house to the other.

I kid you not: Hail To The Chief came on about 2:30, at decibel levels normally reserved for measuring the sound produced by vortex pairing in a Mach 0.1 acoustically-excited air jet.

Really.

Of course, that’s when I marched downstairs and told them in no uncertain terms that the conditions of our leases – wait. Nah. I didn’t do that. I just pounded on the floor like a passive-aggressive moron. Honestly, 1.) I understood their excitement; and 2.) I was looking a little bedraggled and a woman of a Certain Age needs to avoid young, exuberant folk at that time of night.

The headache is going away. The perpetual “Whaaaaat?” look that I’ve had on my face for two terms now – the one giving me wrinkles, by the way – has left.

We’ve begun a new chapter, people.

I eagerly await the history books.